Deceptions: A Collection (31 page)

Nights spent sleeping in the dirt. Skin all but black with it. I’d itch until I bled and she didn’t care. My clothes would fall to rags—

“Stop it,” I muttered, forgetting for a moment that I wasn’t alone.

“Kit?”

I shook my head as the pizza lodged in my throat like a stone. Carefully, I made my way into the little kitchenette and snagged a plate, laid it down. “Try to leave me some food, cat,” I said, not looking his way.

I had left behind that hell the year I found the courage to run.

I needed to remember that.

Six hours of sleep did wonders for me.

That, and a meal.

I’d managed to make myself eat and then I collapsed.

Morning came too early, and I would have slept more, if it wasn’t for the fucking phone going off.

I recognized that ring and I wished I could have just buried my head under the blanket and hide away from the world.

Damon, like me, tended to use ringtones for various people.

There was only one person who didn’t have a ringtone—the Queen Bitch herself, and hers was just the plain, regular, old-fashioned ring. The sound of it was like an ice pick in my ears and as much as I wanted to hide my head under the covers, I didn’t.

As I heard Damon greet her with his formal, “Good morning, My Lady,” I sat up and mimed like I was gagging myself.

He stared daggers at me.

I rolled my eyes and climbed out of bed, making a beeline for the bathroom. I still felt like the dirt, and sweat, and stink from yesterday clung to my skin. Shower. Long and hot, then more food. Thankfully, the headache was gone. I used the toilet, but somewhere in between washing my hands and stripping off my clothes, there was a hard, demanding knock at the door and it opened before I had a chance to jerk my shirt back on.

“Do you mind?” I glared at him.

He stared at me, a deadly look in his eyes.

He had the phone in his hand. “She wants to talk to you. A couple of warnings—I told her about the girl. She wants to know what progress is being made and she’s not pleased that you haven’t found Doyle yet.”

“Yeah, well, I’m not exactly dancing in circles about the fact, either,” I said, glaring at him. I clutched my shirt to my chest. “Can you give me a minute?”

“No.” He took the phone off mute. “Here is the investigator, My Lady. I apologize for the delay.”

He shoved the phone at me without another second and I suspected if I didn’t take the damn phone, he wouldn’t be above hogtying me and forcing me to talk to the crazy bitch.

Turning my back to him, I lifted the phone. “Colbana.”

“Kit…”

She practically purred my name.

The soft, throaty sound of it shouldn’t have sounded so deadly, but it made me shudder. I had to battle back the metallic taste of fear crowding my throat before I could even respond. “What may I do for you this morning, Alpha?”

“I’d like to know why you haven’t found my Doyle, Kit.”

“I’m looking. I think we’re getting closer. There are—”

She interrupted me. “I don’t want to
hear
anything except that you’ve found him.” Then, contradicting herself and showing what a crazy bitch she was, she said, “Why exactly did you rescue some throwaway lynx yesterday instead of searching for my precious nephew?”

Throwaway
. My palm heated. The woman wasn’t even here and I wanted my blade. I wanted to cut her. I wanted to hurt her. Popping my wrist, I imagined it. Imagined actually
doing
it, although there was no way in hell I could. Not on my own. I’d taken some weaker shifters on my own before and I could do it again.

She wasn’t a weaker shifter.

She was Alpha as all get out and there was no way I could take her. Well, not unless I played really, really dirty.

But it was fun to dream. I carried those happy thoughts as I formulated my reply. “I believe there’s a connection and I’m using every tool at my disposal to find your nephew, Alpha. At this point, the girl is another tool.”

Seconds ticked away. Long, long seconds.

“I hear you’ve spoken with witches. Are they more tools?”

“Some of the most skilled ones I have at my disposal,” I answered honestly. “I believe one of them may have seen Doyle and I’m searching the area, looking for signs.”

“I see.” She made an odd sound, one of those noises that was just too deep for a human throat and it made the hair on the back of my neck stand on end. “Hurry up and find my nephew, precious, would you? I miss him. Now…put my boy back on the phone.”

I held the phone over my shoulder and waited for him to take it.

He did. But if I thought he was going to leave, I was in for a rude awakening.

He continued to stand there.

Inches away. Too close for comfort. For sanity.

“Yes, My Lady.”

My blood was roaring in my ears, too loudly for me to make out what the crazy bitch was saying.

And then he touched my back, stroking the tip of one finger over one of my scars. It was one of the longer ones, from the top of my back, near my right shoulder, cutting diagonally down to stop just above my left hip.

“Of course, My Lady. She is.”

He touched another scar. Shorter, this one. He rested his finger on the bottom edge of it, stroking up to where it disappeared around my side, ending just below my left breast.

“Yes. I’m aware….” A few moments of silence. “I’ll remind her. I—”

He went silent. From the corner of my eye, I saw him lay the phone on the counter by the sink. “She wants me to remind you what’s going to happen if you don’t find him,” he said, his voice flat.

And still he continued to trace the scars.

I closed my eyes. “That’s not the easiest thing to forget. Tell me, Damon…exactly who is going to be the lucky one? Is she going to do the deed?”

“The Lady doesn’t like to get her hands dirty,” he whispered, his voice a low, rough rasp. He traced another scar, one that curled around my hip. When he reached the end of it, he kept his hand there.

“I bet.” Swallowing, I turned around, holding my shirt to chest. “What exactly is your position in her pack?”

He blinked and I noticed that he had ridiculously thick black lashes. He studied me through them for a long moment before he finally said, “Pretty much an enforcer. I handle security. Problems.”

“And if I don’t find her nephew, she’ll decide I’m a problem.”

A muscle jerked in his jaw. “I can’t tell you what the Lady will decide.”

“But you know how she’s likely to think.” I reached down and closed my hand around his wrist. “I’d rather you not keep touching me.”

It was like trying to drag away a boulder.

“Stop it,” I half-shouted, shoving at his chest. “Would you get the hell away from me?”

“Not in a thousand years,” he muttered.

When he moved again, it was to pull me against him and move, spinning me around so that the bathroom door was against my back. “You’ll find the kid, Kit. That’s all there is to it.” He pressed his lips to my shoulder.

“It’s been almost two
weeks
.” The futility of it was getting through to me. “Two weeks, damn it. And in case you haven’t noticed…if he’s involved in what we saw yesterday? He may already be dead.”

“No. Doyle is smart. He’s determined. You’ll find him. But…” A shudder wracked his body. “If you don’t—”

I turned my head and made myself open my eyes, made myself meet that intense gaze.

I had to acknowledge this.

I wanted him.

He was bad for me, I knew this.

He was bad for me the same way too much coffee was, the same way too much chocolate was, the way everything good and sinful sweet thing was…and I wanted him anyway.

The problem was that if I failed my job, his Alpha would order him to kill me, and I didn’t have a chance in hell against him.

Nor was he going to
ignore
that order. I knew enough about the fucked-up hierarchy of the werepacks.

They just didn’t ignore orders. If they did, they died.

“If I don’t find him, she’s going to tell you to kill me,” I said softly. “And as…” I paused, closed my eyes and searched for the right word. How in the world did I describe the feel of his body against mine? The way I somehow felt safe around him—
safe
around a man who could kill me in a blink, safe around a man who’d damn near crushed my throat within a few hours of meeting me? Oh, this was insane.

“As
insanely
interesting as this feels? There’s no way I’m going to even think about getting horizontal with a man who may well decide to kill me in the next few days, the next few hours, the next few minutes…”

His eyes flashed.

He leaned in.

My brain damned near exploded as he caught my lower lip between his teeth and nipped me. “Pretty little kitten, we don’t have to be horizontal. Right like this is fine,” he growled against my mouth. Then he shifted and whispered against my ear. “I decided quite some time ago that I wouldn’t be killing you. It doesn’t matter what the outcome of this job is. And anybody who tries is going to have to go through me. Nobody and nothing is going to hurt you as long as I’m around. Nobody hurts you when I’m around, you got me?”

His hands glided up my sides. It was a sensation that sent all sorts of hot, trembly little sparks crashing through me and for the longest time, I couldn’t think. It got so, so much worse as the heels of his hands glided over the outer curves of my breasts. “You got awful quiet there, little kitten. Cat got your tongue?”

Dumbly, I just stared at him.

He might have been a cat, but the smile that lit his face just then looked decidedly wolfish.

“Actually…I haven’t had that pleasure…” he muttered against my mouth. “Yet.”

Seconds later, he stroked his tongue across my lips.

A gasp escaped me.

One of us shuddered. I don’t know if it was him or me.

But then he pushed his tongue into my mouth and I wrapped my arms around his neck. Bad for me or not, he tasted too damn good to deny. His groan rumbled against my breasts and it was sheer amazement, the way it felt.

A big hand cupped my butt, boosted me higher. Wrapping my ankles around his hips, I arched against him. Through the thin cotton yoga pants I’d worn to bed, I could feel a thick, heavy ridge. His jeans held him confined and it was a damn good thing, because I could already see me trying to rip away my clothes and just wrap myself around him. Desperately. Hungrily. Forgetting everything else—

No
…

Something important—

Groaning, I tore my mouth away from his and shoved against the muscled wall of his chest.

“This is insane.”

His hands closed around my wrists.

“Life isn’t exactly supposed to make sense, baby girl,” Damon said quietly.

Shaking my head, I closed my eyes. I needed to think. Needed to think—

“If you don’t find him, she’ll want you dead,” Damon murmured against my temple. “So we need to focus on finding him.”

I stiffened. Well. That was a good way to throw a pall on things. Twisting away from him, I moved on clumsy legs until I had a little bit of space between us. A very little bit. I glanced around and then shivered at the cool kiss of air on my naked flesh. Scowling, I looked down and saw my shirt on the ground. I bent over and grabbed it, hauling it over my head. “I wanted a shower,” I muttered. “I just wanted a shower and I wanted to eat.”

“You just took a shower last night,” Damon pointed out.

I shrugged, absently scratching my arm. Even though there wasn’t anything on me, I still felt dirty.

He noticed.

Dropping my hand, I crossed my arms over my chest and glared at him. “Are you going to let me shower?”

He stood there for a minute, studying me. “We’re talking, baby girl. Very soon.”

“I can’t wait.” I bared my teeth at him.

His hand snaked out and he caught the front of my shirt, hauled me against him. A kiss so hard, so quick, it left me breathless. “Keep doing that, kitten,” he whispered. “And we’ll just go complicating an already complicated mess. Now shower, so you can eat and we can talk and start trying to figure out the other options we’ve got.”

“We’ve got
two
,” I told him. “I find Doyle or I die.”

“There’s only one acceptable one. We find Doyle. But there are going to be other ones. We start figuring those out. Today.”

I showered down, from head to toe, washed my hair twice and felt mostly better.

Physically, at least.

Emotionally, mentally, I was still a mess. As I stood there slicking on lotion, I had to acknowledge an ugly fact—I was going to be a mess until this job was over and done, and maybe even for a while after.

Assuming I survived.

Of course, if Damon was to be believed, he didn’t want me dead.

Not thinking about that right now
, I told myself. Instead, I focused on the mundane task of digging through my bag for clothes. Tan tank top, sport bra, tan BDUs. A little bit cooler version of what I’d worn yesterday. I had some shorts I could wear, but that wasn’t going to happen, not if we were going to head back into the Everglades. No way, no how was I going through there in shorts. It was stupid enough going out there in a tank top, leaving my flesh exposed for the mini-vampires also known as mosquitoes.